Joe and Mary
Ann McDonald's

Wildlife Photography

July 2005

Tip of the Month

Helicon Focus Filter

This image was shot
at f2.8!

I'm not a software geek and I rarely have time to get on the
web, surf sites, and discover exciting new innovations. I owe
knowing about this one to George Lepp, who told me about the filter
while I sought his advice on a new monitor. George generously
shared this fantastic tip ... THANKS, GEORGE!

The above image, and the images shown below were all taken
less than an hour ago, right after I downloaded the Helicon Focus
filter. The Filter is designed to increase depth of field for
macro photography, microscopic photography, and hyperfocal distance
landscape photography. It succeeds incredibly well. I rarely get
excited about software, if for no other reason than I simply don't
have the time to learn something new. This software looked pretty
easy to implement, however, which is a huge plus ... and indeed,
it was so simple I ran the filter without reading anything other
than the menu! And, it worked!

Shot at f2.8, I did a series
of images slightly changing focus each time. Above, you are seeing
the first
and the last image that was shot in the series of eight images.

All of the images in the series were
shot at f2.8 with a 100mm macro lens. At 2.8, at the working distance
I was at, my depth of field was little more than my plane of focus.
You can see the shallowness of the depth of field in the two images,
showing the start and the finish of the series. The trick is to
shoot a series of images, keeping the camera's position constant
while very minutely adjusting the focus. In the images of our
eclectic library shelf below, my first attempt wasn't too satisfying
because I left too many large focusing gaps between images. So,
after running the filter, I redid the shots, and shot a whole
series where the focus changed by very, very small amounts. In
total, there were 38 images, and all were shot at f2.8!

First shot in the series, and last shot in the series of 38 images
that comprised running
my focus down the length of the book shelf.

This image was shot at f2.8, also, representing 45 feet of
depth with a 105mm lens!

Running the Helicon Focus filter was incredibly easy. In the
File Menu's drop down menu I selected 'Add new items), then navigated
through my file folders to the images I just shot. In the Open
window I selected the images (click and shift-click) and clicked
'open.' A preview window shows an image if an individual image
is selected. I always bracket my composite images by snapping
off a frame of my hand at the beginning, and at the end, of the
sequence so that I have a dark or black image in front and in
back. I then selected the images inside that bracket.

I
actually did the library shelf twice. The first time, as mentioned,
I had left gaps that were too large, where I simply had not focused
on spots within the scene. The second time I started at the bird
skull (LEFT) and the book shelf blurred out of focus. Although
the image still looked pretty good, I did a final series where
I made sure that the nearest object (the wood of the shelf) was
in focus.

Remember, each of the 38 images were shot at f2.8. The changes
in color that you see in the 'final' images were produced by tweaking
the final copy in Photoshop CS2. I shot the second series at a
medium JPEG size, and you may notice some highlighting around
the wooden frog and the objects in the very back (left side) that
were the result of the smaller JPEG resolution. My first attempts
were done on a large JPEG format and the highlighting did not
occur.

The next step is the really difficult one. There's a highlighted
button that says 'Run' and I clicked that. Within seconds the
filter starting churning out the building focus composite, and
in about two minutes, max, the filter combined all 38 images.
The file for this image is displayed in an Output window, directly
below the Source window on the left side of the screen. Going
back to File>Save I saved the image.

I shot jpegs for this illustration but the program works with
RAW and TIFF files as well. I didn't read the Help menu ... I
simply looked at the Focus
website and got the gist of what was needed. Making four focus
composites (redoing the library shelf three times so that I was
providing enough focus detail in each layer), I produced these
two composites in less than 10 minutes.

I can't wait to try this out in the field! You can try the
program out for yourself with a free download from their website.
I think you'll want to buy this one -- I love it!